Today Apple apologised for its handling of the issue and said it would drop the price of battery replacements from $119 to $39 in Australia and worldwide until the end of 2018.

"We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down," the company said in a statement.

"We apologise. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we’re making."

It claimed it "would never" intentionally shorten the life of an Apple product or degrade the user experience so as to encourage people to buy new products.

The company said it would issue an iOS software update early in 2018 that would provide users more visibility on the health of their battery so they can ascertain whether it is affecting the iPhone's performance.

Apple also published a support article providing more detail on how it handles the iPhone's battery and performance for consumers.

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